The Kills Ash & Ice: An Album a Day

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday- Friday

    Going back to the collection of albums that Noah really likes, we’re today looking at the latest album by The Kills, Ash & Ice. For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Kills, they are a blues inspired indie rock duo featuring Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince. Rather than The White Stripes / Black Keys formula of drums and guitar they instead have only guitar and vocals, using a drum machine to fill out the rhythm section. The interplay of Mosshart’s vocals and Hince’s guitar playing is what makes this band a lot more than the sum of their parts.

    While The White Stripes always had a punk influence they never really played up the bad boy punk image all that much. Their music was devoid of profanity and generally were closer to nasty blues rock than anything. While The Kills don’t sound particularly punk rock, being way too slow and methodical, they do play up the menacing atmosphere and delinquent attitude of punk music. The image and attitude of punk without the sound is probably why they’re usually categorized as indie rockers. This slightly darker tone and image also bleeds over into the Jack White and Alison Mosshart supergroup The Dead Weather.

    Getting back to Ash & Ice, it may be their easiest album to listen too, especially if you come from a pop or mainstream rock background. Blood Pressures and No Wow are also pretty accessible, but this is the most streamlined and cleanly produced album they have ever done. The whole album is fantastic from start to finish, but the highlights are Doing It To Death, Hum For Your Buzz and Siberian Nights.

    Doing It To Death was the first single off of this album and it’s not hard to see why, this song has the crossover appeal to have worked on alternative stations, rock stations and maybe even pop stations. The way that Hince’s guitar builds and fades in time with the drum machine creates the perfect bed for Mosshart’s vocal delivery. Also props to the music video director for having the choreography evoke the feeling of the song perfectly.

    Hum For Your Buzz is one of my favorite moments on this album, containing nothing but Mosshart singing over a very basic blues guitar accompaniment. Obviously this is one of the softer moments on the record and features some of the best of Mosshart and Hince playing off of each other. I also want to hear more direct guitar solos after the tasteful blues solo Hince pulls off here.

    Lastly we have Siberian Nights, the track which absolutely drips in the sexual tension and energy that Mosshart is so good at conveying. While she always has an element of this in her delivery, this song makes it fairly explicit with lyrics full of double entendre and sexual references. The lyrics seem to go back and forth between seduction and hesitation, with Mosshart asking in the chorus why the target of her affection has no love for her. By the end of the song she turns from seduction to practically begging her target to help her through the Siberian Nights.

    While this album isn’t anything particularly special in regards to the rest of The Kills catalogue, it’s one of their only albums I can get all the way through. Most of their albums feature a dud or two, or have weird noise rock inspired breaks, but this one is clean all the way through. As a huge Dead Weather fan it’s cool to see how Alison manages to take over and own every track she’s on, regardless of what sort of band she’s working with.

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Tame Impala Lonerism: An Album a Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

    Today I am reviewing an album I had recommended to me by a friend of mine, Lonerism by Tame Impala. The recommender of this album said that this is one of his favorite modern album, and given that he generally has pretty good taste in music I decided to give it a listen. Now I’ve heard of Tame Impala before, but I’ve never heard any of their music. My initial thinking with this band is that they would be somewhere in the ballpark of bands like Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys or Wolfmother, which wasn’t a completely wrong assumption.

    First things first, Tame Impala are a band in the same sense as Nine Inch Nails; one guy writes and records everything and then gets other musicians together to tour. In this case that one guy is Kevin Parker, a multi instrumentalist contrarian who has an affinity for the music of the 60s and 70s as well as modern pop music. This album shows off all of those interests as well as some downright dirty guitar playing at times.

    Apparently their first album was a much more straightforward rock album, at least in Parker’s mind and he wanted to experiment with their follow up. He even stated that he got bored messing with guitar sounds after the first album and became inspired to work with vintage synthesizers for the sound of Lonerism. On top of that he wanted to have the music wash over the listener rather than striking out the way it had on the first album.

    These desires mixed with a love for pop melodies is what spawned the half dream pop half garage rock album that is Lonerism. Some of the stand out tracks on this album are Endors Toi and Elephant. Endors Toi caught my attention at first because of the main synth line throughout the song sounding like a combination of Free Bird and the Metroid Theme. The other thing that caught me is the fuzzy guitar solo towards the end of the track that differentiates it from the rest of the album.

    Elephant is the track that made me realize I had heard one song from Tame Impala before, and this is definitely my favorite track on the album. As I haven’t listened to their first album yet I don’t know for sure but I’d imagine this is close to what it sounded like. And I’ll be honest I prefer this mix of fuzz bass and synths to most of the rest of this album. I think I just prefer to have some elements of the song stick out rather than the whole thing wash over me. The instrumentation on this track is excellent and overall has damn near perfect construction.

    While the rest of the album doesn’t stick out to me like these two tracks, it’s not because they’re bad but because they work best within the context of the whole album. Lonerism works best as an album, much like ones from the 60s and 70s. Despite being a pretty loud album the constant waves of synth and guitar layers makes it a soothing experience, much like shoegaze. For the same reason that I don’t listen to Pink Floyd very often I probably wouldn’t listen to this too often either, because it’s going to make me feel tired.

    Overall this is an excellently put together album with a few track that really stand out on their own. If you’re sleep deprived like me though, listen when you don’t have anything to lose by drifting off because the dream element of dream pop is heavily emphasized here.

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3. Interview With A Frontman, The Rave of Spells and Curses

Noah and Justin talk Sinful Things, guitars and the music that inspired Spells and Curses with lead

singer and multi instrumentalist The Rave.

During the course of the interview Noah and The Rave discussed various pieces of his live setup and

his earliest guitar. Below are some visual aids as to the instruments discussed during the interview.

This is the first legitimate guitar owned by The Rave. It was

part of a Squier starter pack which bundled a beginner guitar

and amp together. The Apple logo is no longer on this guitar.

These are the two main guitars that

The Rave uses when playing live.

The one at the top is a PRS single

cut guitar while the bottom one is a

Fender American Stratocaster.

Official Spells and Curses website

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Imagine Dragons Evolve: An Album a Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

    Imagine Dragons are an interesting band to me, like I said when I reviewed X Ambassadors, they get a lot of undue criticism in my opinion. A lot of people trash Imagine Dragons for being a radio rock band, but I’ll take a half decent radio rock band over the garbage EDM and minimalist pop that dominates the radio these days. When I’ve listened to Imagine Dragons before I found that like most pop leaning rock artists I didn’t care for most of their deeper cuts, especially with Imagine Dragons’ tendency to fill their album with boring soft rock.

    I expected their new album Evolve to be much the same; I’d like the lead single, find the second single to be okay and maybe like another 1 or 2 songs off the album. Surprisingly I actually like more songs from Evolve than I dislike. The first couple of songs on this album add some hip hop and r&b elements that I didn’t realize were missing from Imagine Dragons’ sound.

The first track, I Don’t Know Why is basically a Weeknd or Drake song with some 80’s synths and occasional guitar stabs added. The second track, Whatever It Takes is kind of like Imagine Dragons doing a Twenty One Pilots song in the way that it blends rapping on the verses with an alternative rock chorus. The third track and lead single Believer is the perfect blending of these hip hop elements with Imagine Dragons’ typical heavy rhythms and soaring vocals into what is probably the most cohesive track on the album.

    If Believer is the Radioactive of this album than Walking The Wire really wants to be the Demons. To me Walking The Wire is one of the worst tracks on the album as it just sounds like a boring contemporary Christian song, even more so than Demons. The better choice for the lower tempo inspirational single would have been the next song on the record, Rise Up. While Rise Up isn’t anywhere near the best song on the album, it has the calm soft rock sound that Imagine Dragon’s second single usually has, and unlike the previous track Dan Reynolds actually sounds invested.

    The third soft rock track is up next and it’s possibly worse than Walking The Wire, after this we get the strangest track on the album, Yesterday. This song is really hard to describe, but it’s a strange track that calls to mind The Beatles and Panic! At The Disco. Reynolds also sings in a lower register that reminds me of Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, but despite the weirdness it is a good track.

    Then we get Mouth Of The River, which is a well written and powerful rock track followed by Thunder, which is a minimalistic hip hop track. Thunder actually works way better than most trap songs that try to make this same rhythm and beat work. The album closes out with two mediocre tracks that don’t really stand out much, although Dancing In The Dark is kind of trippy with it’s glitchy electronic vibe.

    This album has more tracks on it that I like than any other Imagine Dragons’ album I’ve listened to before and some of them are legitimately great songs. Imagine Dragons have greatly reduced the number of terrible soft rock songs on this album and replaced them with more experimental tracks. I also commend them on how they mix in more and more disparate genres and make them work without losing their own sound; that is really what this band does best. I hope they continue to experiment with mixing in the Tron inspired synths and hip hop elements of this album or even some of the string sections from Smoke + Mirrors in the future and drop the crappy soft rock songs entirely.
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X Ambassadors VHS: An Album a Day

 An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

   Is it just me or do a lot of people act like Imagine Dragons are the new Nickelback? People act like they are nothing more than a soulless money maker without a style; hell I’ve found out a lot of people who don’t like Dan Reynolds voice. I personally don’t get it, but to those people I would say go listen to X Ambassadors, because after listening to their crappy album VHS you will beg for Imagine Dragons.

    Generally I’ve seen these two bands be put in the same category and they’ve even collaborated a few times; because of this I think it only fitting to compare the two. While Imagine Dragons do make a fair amount of obvious radio bait songs, they also make some solid tracks that are deeper cuts on the record and it’s not like most of their hits are bad. Compare to that X Ambassadors, a band so ready to sell out they are literally only popular because of a car commercial. And if it was a case of them getting big off of that and the rest of their album was good or even average, I’d give them a pass but this album sucks.

    On the topic of style, Imagine Dragons have a very definitive and recognizable sound even with the way they blur genres a lot. Imagine Dragons two most distinct elements are pounding rhythms and Dan Reynolds very unique voice, now their softer tracks usually drop the huge drums in favor of acoustic guitars, but Reynolds voice is still instantly recognizable. X Ambassadors claim to be a real rock band with some things taken from indie music, and that pretty much holds true. They are an alternative rock band with the pretention and boring sound of indie.

    As for the songs on the album, all of them are forgettable as hell. The two exceptions are Renegades and Unsteady which are okay enough songs that get stuck in your head and just become aggravating. Those two tracks are actually pretty good, along with Nervous and B.I.G., but the issue that even these tracks suffer from is sounding generic. The first 6 tracks on this album could literally just be called “The jeep commercial”, “The pop song”, “Bastille knockoff”, “Nick Jonas knockoff”, “even Dan Reynolds can’t save you now” and “Why is this drum and bass?”.

    The only thing that almost counts as a constant style is the inclusion of acoustic guitars on most of these tracks, but nothing about the playing is unique or memorable. Lead singer Sam Harris isn’t a bad singer at all, but he suffers from sounding way too much like everybody else. At times he sounds like Dan Reynolds, at other times Adam Levine or Chris Martin from Coldplay with an American accent. He occasionally dips into a more soul singer kind of voice that has a bit of it’s own sound, but overall Harris is just too generic sounding, just like the rest of the band.

    Maybe this album is a combination of songs that were written or partially written over the course of the years since they formed and that’s why it feels so disjointed, or maybe it’s just the crappy first album bands put out that used to only go out to a couple of people before the internet. Either way, these guys need to cultivate their own sound before they attempt a follow up. I’d like to see them either take the Panic! At The Disco approach and sound like a slightly different version of a more popular rock band or simply expand on the sound from Renegades more. Who knows, maybe they’re next album will fantastic, after all Harry Styles is now a rock star and Pantera were originally a glam rock band called Gemini; things can change.

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Royal Blood How Did We Get So Dark?: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is published 5 days a week Monday-Friday

    After the near perfect album that was Royal Blood’s debut I was hardly able to wait for How Did We Get So Dark? to release. I literally listened to this album at 12:01 when it became available on Google Play Music and have spun it three more times since. This album is fantastic, although it is a little bit different than what I was expecting from Royal Blood.

    My biggest complaint with this album is that the weakest tracks are all towards the beginning of record. The title track is a legitimately good opener but then Lights Out and I Only Lie When I Love You are the two weakest tracks on the album. Lights Out isn’t bad, it’s just kind of boring to me; after only hearing it a handful of times it already feels like it’s been overplayed. I Only Lie When I Love You has really poppy sounding vocals and production, although  I will admit it gets slightly better everytime I listen to it.

    She’s Creeping is a mixed bag that I’m not really sure what to make of, I think I like it but it doesn’t move me the way some of the later tracks do. The main riff and use of a major scale on the chorus is actually really cool, but it lacks the energy of their other tracks. On top of that they do one of my most hated musical tropes on this track; the fakeout buildup. The bridge is entirely a buildup that after 30 seconds just goes back into the chorus.

    Track 5, Look Like You Know is where the album starts to pick up steam and never slow back down. Look Like You Know has a some really nice melodies over the top of the brutal pounding bass playing, with Kerr’s affected vocals working really well in the context of this song. The next track Where Are You Now reminds me of The Black Keys and The White Stripes, having that really steady punk blues trashy feel both bands are known for. There are a few breaks that bring to mind Muse or Queens of The Stone Age, but even with all of these elements the track is 100% Royal Blood.

    The last 4 tracks are far and away the strongest ones on the album and well worth the wait. Don’t Tell is a powerfully thick stoner rock track that shows what Royal Blood do with a slower song. Kerr’s falsetto vocals on the chorus are of particular mention, especially in contrast to the thick bass riff underneath him. The buildup to the bridge is well executed and gives a smooth transition to the crescendo of the bluesy bass solo that leads back into the final chorus.

    Hook, Line and Sinker is the track that is the most like the songs off of their first album and also one of the strongest on this album. The way that the vocals and the bass follow each other throughout the verses and chorus give the feel of a musician who is fully in sync with his instrument. One of the common threads I’m finding throughout this album is that I really enjoy Kerr’s falsetto vocals, it's likely the contrast against the thick bass riffs and pounding drums that I enjoy so much.

    Hole In Your Heart is probably the coolest track on the album as it features Mike Kerr playing electric piano on the verses before shifting back to bass on the choruses. While he’s just pounding out chords on the piano while he sings over it, the piano adds another layer to the track that I honestly wouldn’t have expected to work this well. A small detail that I applaud them for is closing the track back out with the electric piano as well instead of just going full rocker until the end.

    The closing track Sleep is really the only song that could close this album out as it does the job perfectly. The main bass riff in this song has a neo classical vibe that wouldn’t sound out of place if played by a string section. It’s a very dramatic riff that builds tension behind the vocals. The reason why this track is the perfect closer though is the way that it fades out for the last 40 seconds, with short bass stabs (reminiscent of a cello) as the only accompaniment to Kerr’s vocals as the track fades out.

    Overall this album is great, even with the weaker moments early on. With a band that I know I’ll listen to the whole album I’d prefer the weaker stuff first so that it gets better as I listen, but to anybody who isn’t a fan it could be a deterrent to keep listening. It’s difficult to compare this album to their first one because where it was solid all the way through this one has highs and lows.

    The first album was a pretty steady level of rock all the way through and it was great because of it. This album has songs that are better and worse than a lot of their first album, and by law of averages probably winds up about even. If the entire album sounded like the second half it wouldn’t even be close as to which was better, but tracks 2-4 drag it down to just as good as their debut.

Album on Google Play

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Trophii Vitamins and Flowers: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is published 5 days a week Monday-Friday

    After waiting over 4 years for a debut album, Lindsey Pavao’s angry kickstarter backers finally have something to show for their donations. Pavao, one half of the dream pop duo Trophii, was a semifinalist on the NBC singing competition The Voice back in 2012. Pavao was always something of an oddball among the show’s mainstream pop, rock and country artists as she was clearly cut from an indie background. No matter how much dubstep and pop production her coach Christina Aguilera surrounded her with, she retained her unique indie stylings.

    This indie streak likely played a big role in her post Voice approach to making a debut album; kickstarter. Rather than selling out and cutting a pop record hot off the heels of the exposure she gained from The Voice, Pavao decided to go small time and make her music her way; the only snag is that it seems she was unsure of what way that was. Somewhere along the line she joined up with a band before breaking off on her own project with co-conspirator Richie Smith.

    The combination of Pavao and Smith is a strong one; despite the duo’s debut album being weird and often experimental it succeeds on almost every level. As a self described dream pop duo, you could be forgiven for expecting them to sound like a boring and ambient wall of sound with lilty vocals laid over top. On the contrary, most songs feature strong, driving rhythms and interesting melodies on top of the wash of ambient synths and echoey guitars. Even the songs that are mostly mellow and ambient feature prominent melodies that keep the tracks from being dull.

    Pavao’s vocals have not lost a step from her days on the voice, brilliantly going from sweet and soothing on Vitamins and Flowers to creepy and a bit threatening on Raven. I think Raven and Featherway are two of the most interesting tracks on the album as the melodies and interplay between Smith's guitar and Pavao’s vocals create a great combo.

    Surprisingly for such an ambient album there is a lot of tasty guitar work throughout. From the solos on the album opener Itch and second track Trove to the interesting melodies played throughout Raven and Featherway, Smith’s guitar work is superb. What Smith does throughout this album is something far rarer than playing the guitar well, it is playing the guitar in a restrained manner that always serves the song.

    As a huge fan of both Pavao and genuinely good indie music, I absolutely adore this album. While it’s entirely possible that there are a million better indie records out there that I simply do not know about, this album is fantastic. Trophii have done just enough with melody and rhythm to keep the ambient elements of this record from being drowsy or boring, but they do this without overpowering those ambient elements. If this is what dream pop sounds like, then I might have to go listen to some more dream pop.
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Elle King Love Stuff: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

     Here we have someone doing the neo-soul, blues rock thing who does something besides rip off Jack White or The Black Keys. In the same group as Kaleo and Hozier we have Elle King, the banjo slinging singer songwriter daughter of Rob Schneider. Her debut album Love Stuff is filled to the brim with powerful rockers, catchy hooks and some chilled out country ballads.

    The first thing I’ll praise this album for is the sheer number of good music on here that fits perfectly within the modern rock and pop scenes. The first two tracks on this album, Where The Devil Don’t Go and Ex’s and Oh’s got major radio play on pop and alternative stations despite both tracks being fuzz guitar driven rock songs. Despite the heavy rock elements found in these songs, King’s lyrics and vocal delivery are catchy enough to fit in perfectly on pop radio.   
    The album opens with four strong blues rock tracks filled with fuzzy guitars and raspy soul filled vocals. The next few tracks feature King singing country and folk inspired ballads while strumming the banjo with drums, piano and other production elements filling out the mix behind her. Track seven was the last single released from the album and is a country dance track that sounds like a mix between Avicii and acoustic Mumford and Sons.
    I Told You I Was Mean is a good anti love song in the same country soul vein as the rest of this section of the album. The next track, Ain’t Gonna Drown has a gothic folk sound that reminds me of Will There Be Enough Water by the Dead Weather. Despite the shift it doesn’t feel out of place as King’s poppiest tracks still have an edge to them that feels completely natural to her. The song Jackson takes a slight detour back into hard rock territory before wrapping up the album with two soft acoustic songs that show a more vulnerable side to King.
    Overall this album is strong, and although I would have preferred a few more rock tracks there is nothing wrong with the country leaning songs on the album. If I had one complaint it would be that the last two songs kind of go against the attitude that King has set up on the rest of the album, and I personally would have preferred more punk rock attitude to close out the album. While I was initially drawn in by the fuzz guitars on the early tracks, I stuck around for Elle King’s unique combination of powerful rasp and vocal sweetness.

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Bitch Magnet Star Booty: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

Today’s album and band are not the type of band you’ll find on many top 10 lists; hell you’ll be hard pressed to find anybody who’s heard of them who didn’t come up in the same scene as they did. Bitch Magnet were a three piece post hardcore band that often strayed into noise rock territory. I first discovered the band’s story through a book entitled Your Band Sucks that was written by the band’s guitarist Jon Fine; throughout the book, Fine tells the tale of his various experiences in bands with the first serious one being Bitch Magnet.

While the name might offend some people’s sensibilities it’s pretty much par for the course for the hardcore punk inspired indie scene that the band came up in. While both lead singer/ bassist Sooyoung Park  and Fine would go on to create more progressive minded music both within and without the band, Star Booty is a mostly straightforward rage filled rock fest of an album. Despite the obvious hardcore punk influences throughout the album, Star Booty does manage to be much more listenable than your average Minor Threat song.

Of the entire album the only track I’m not terribly fond of is Circle K as it snaps you out of the almost meditative state the rest of the album puts you in. Similarly to shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine I find that the wall of noise created by the heavily distorted guitar and bass becomes almost soothing after a while, as the noise just kind of washes over you.

While Carnation and Cantaloupe are good opening and closing tracks respectively, the strongest chunk of the album is from Chord through Knucklehead. Each of these songs flow together in such a way that they have the feel of one long musical piece, rather than four separate songs.

The version of this album that can be found on Itunes, Google Play and Spotify is a deluxe edition that includes remastered versions of other EPs and singles the band released. Of these the only one I find particularly good is Big Pining, but none of them are bad per se. Overall this is a killer noise rock and post hardcore album, and likely one of the most accessible in the noise rock genre for the uninitiated.
            Bitch Magnet have played a few reunion shows with other bands from the same indie scene and watching these guys play live brings the music to life in a whole other way from the studio recordings. Below I have embedded a video of them playing live in 2012 at the Knitting Factory.

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Complete 3 Album Set On Amazon

Your Band Sucks by Jon Fine on Amazon (A Great Read)